Development of a New C-Plus Particle Fluidized Bed Reactor

向上流动的气体通过颗粒最终可以悬浮它们以形成“流化床”，即悬浮颗粒层，其中颗粒的大界面表面积完全暴露于向上流动的气体。这种“流化”技术已广泛应用于工业过程中，利用大的表面积。例如，在空气和煤颗粒之间有效接触的情况下，通过将细煤颗粒悬浮（流化）在空气流中，使发电中的煤燃烧非常有效。流化床的最大应用是在化学反应器中，因为悬浮颗粒与气相具有良好的接触，导致非常高的反应效率。 然而，由于减小的颗粒尺寸引起的非常强的颗粒间力导致的颗粒附聚已经阻止了在流化中使用5-30微米的细颗粒，否则这将提供甚至更大的界面接触面积。如果人们能够“释放”隐藏在这些细颗粒聚集体中的大表面积，则存在使流化床的反应器效率加倍甚至四倍的巨大潜力。在化学工业中，即使是很小的效率提高也会带来巨大的经济效益。 根据他在粉末涂料行业的长期工作经验，申请人最近提出了一种新的C-Plus颗粒理论，在粉末涂料行业中，纳米颗粒通常被添加到30-60微米的精细涂料颗粒中，以确保其良好的流动性（专利申请中）：所谓的C-Plus颗粒主要由粘性Geldart-C颗粒组成（5-30微米）和选择的纳米颗粒来“调节”内聚性，使它们不仅可流化，而且具有更好的流化质量。初步试验表明，与常规流化床反应器相比，C+颗粒的流化非常平稳，床膨胀高达200%，化学转化率高达200%。 拟议项目的短期目标是充分探索这种C+颗粒流化床，并进行参数研究。长期目标是将该技术在加工工业中商业化。另一个目的是扩大我们目前的流化理论，包括新的理论流化的细颗粒。这有望导致化学反应工程领域的重大突破。 申请人从事各种流化技术和细颗粒应用超过25年，因此他的团队拥有完成拟议研究的专业知识和必要仪器。申请人的重大研究项目和丰富的培训经验，加上优良的设施，将为HQP提供最佳的培训环境。

Upflowing gas through particles can eventually suspend them to form a “fluidized bed”, a layer of suspended particles where the large inter-facial surface area of the particles are fully exposed to the upflowing gas. This “fluidization” technology has been widely applied in industrial processes, utilizing the large surface area. For example, coal combustion in electricity generation was made very efficient by suspending (fluidizing) fine coal particles in the air stream given the effective contact between air and coal particles. The largest application of fluidized bed is in chemical reactors because the suspended particles have excellent contact with the gas phase, leading to very high reaction efficiency. However, particle agglomeration due to very strong inter-particle forces, arising from the reduced particle size, has prevented the use of fine particles of 5-30 microns in fluidization, which would otherwise provide even larger interfacial contact areas. There exists a huge potential to double or even quadruple the reactor efficiency of fluidized beds if one can “release” the large surface area hidden in the agglomerates of those fine particles. In chemical industry, even a small increase in efficiency will lead to huge economic benefits. Originating from his long term working experience with the powder coating industry where nano particles have been routinely added into fine coating particles of 30-60 microns to ensure their good flowability, the applicant has recently proposed a new theory of C-Plus particles (patent pending): The so-called C-Plus particles consist of primarily cohesive Geldart-C particles (5-30 microns) and selected nano-particles to “modulate” the cohesion, making them not only fluidizable but with better fluidization quality. Preliminary tests have shown that the C-plus particles fluidize very smoothly with up to 200% high bed expansion and up to 200% chemical conversion compared to regular fluidized bed reactors. The short term objective of the proposed project is to fully explore this C-plus particle fluidized bed, with parametric study. The long term objective is to commercialize this technology in the process industry. An additional objective is to expand our current fluidization theory to include new theory on the fluidization of fine particles. This is expected to lead to a major breakthrough in the field of chemical reaction engineering. The applicant has been working on various fluidization technologies and fine particle applications for over 25 years, so his group has the expertise and the necessary instrumentations to complete the proposed research. The great research project and the extensive training experiences of the applicant, plus the excellent facility, will provide the best training environment for HQPs.